Im looking for some possible cohesion in the aspie communities beliefs. (is it a respectable term? aspies communities? how about the autistic communities?)
I'm trying to gain understanding of your community. I feel if I gain an understanding I will be able to avoid inulting and treating it in a disrespectful way.
What are the FIVE (do as many as ya want!) things you would love to be able to pound into our heads?
Thanks for taking the time.
Phil
Oh, man. I agree with whomever mentioned people just saying "Hello." and walking on. That really disturbs me. Hello is a segueway into further conversation, just like "How are you doing?" is. Both seem to be used by NT's as greetings with no further thought applied. If you don't want to talk, then just a wave would be fine. It is highly annoying to take the thought to prepare responses and to have the person simply walk off.
I'm also annoyed by people who harm their children or verbally berate them in public. A child is still a human. Just because they're short and immature of body doesn't mean they need to be screamed at or treated like unloved pets. The urge to strike the parents when this happens is almost overpowering.
This has been a great thread for my husand and myself to read. Kinda gives us an eye into the future and how my son may feel about certain things. Great learning tool for us NT parents of autistic children. Thanks for posting.
That people like Sir Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein, Thomas Jefferson, Bill Gates, Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, and almost all of the movers and shakers of the scientific world are alleged Aspies, as are many of the more famous writers, musicians, actors, and artists. Your world would be a shadow of itself without us.
(There are seemingly endless lists of famous Aspie names on the internet.
That we see, hear, taste, smell, and feel much more of the physical world than you do. We are ultrasensitive to soft sounds than you are. Many of us can hear high-pitched (ultrasonic) sounds that your ears are incapable of hearing. We are driven crazy by tiny pinpoints of light that you can't even see. The seam in the bottom of our socks is very bothersome. (I'll bet the princess in the "Princess and the Pea" fable was an Aspie.)
That we are NOT repeat NOT mentally ill. We have a different neurological system which is not yet understood. We are not schizophrenic ( a chemical imbalance); we live in the same world that you do, not little worlds of our own.
We are not sociopathic, people-haters,or wannabe hermits. We are nonviolent unless pushed beyond the limits of our tolerance. We do not have an attachment disorder, as so many people seem to think, despite the many differences.
And yes, many of us are clumsy. We walk funny. We are humiliated in our gym classes because we are usually the last people who are picked when the gym teacher tells his favorite "jocks" to choose up sides. We can't understand why the gym teacher thinks that everybody has to be an athlete, and gives us low grades because he thinks we are shirking.
We are subject to food allergies like you wouldn't believe. We have bizarre medication reactions which baffle doctors and pharmacists.
Our likes and dislikes are very different from yours. We could care less who wins the Superbowl or Wimbledon or the Stanley Cup. We like old coins and freight trains, and can drive you out of your mind by reciting an encyclopedic knowlege of the development of diesel locomotives.
If we were offered a "CURE", and become like the neurotypical (normal, whatever that may be) people, whom many of us consider to be dull and boring, we would refuse. We wish that well-meaning people would quit trying to "cure" us, especially those delusional people who think that behavior modification is going to do the trick.
And MANY THANKS for asking this. I am even thinking of mailing this to the editor of a local newspaper.
I find it disturbing that you are talking for all Aspies. I am very athletically gifted, I care who wins the Super Bowl and Wimbledon and I do have an attachment disorder. In the future you may want to speak on your behalf as we are all individuals with unique circumstances. There are some things that you can apply to Aspies, but about half the things you say about Aspies does not apply to me.
I appreciate the response, but not that you have taken upon yourself to my voice.
That people like Sir Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein, Thomas Jefferson, Bill Gates, Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, and almost all of the movers and shakers of the scientific world are alleged Aspies, as are many of the more famous writers, musicians, actors, and artists. Your world would be a shadow of itself without us.
(There are seemingly endless lists of famous Aspie names on the internet.
That we see, hear, taste, smell, and feel much more of the physical world than you do. We are ultrasensitive to soft sounds than you are. Many of us can hear high-pitched (ultrasonic) sounds that your ears are incapable of hearing. We are driven crazy by tiny pinpoints of light that you can't even see. The seam in the bottom of our socks is very bothersome. (I'll bet the princess in the "Princess and the Pea" fable was an Aspie.)
That we are NOT repeat NOT mentally ill. We have a different neurological system which is not yet understood. We are not schizophrenic ( a chemical imbalance); we live in the same world that you do, not little worlds of our own.
We are not sociopathic, people-haters,or wannabe hermits. We are nonviolent unless pushed beyond the limits of our tolerance. We do not have an attachment disorder, as so many people seem to think, despite the many differences.
And yes, many of us are clumsy. We walk funny. We are humiliated in our gym classes because we are usually the last people who are picked when the gym teacher tells his favorite "jocks" to choose up sides. We can't understand why the gym teacher thinks that everybody has to be an athlete, and gives us low grades because he thinks we are shirking.
We are subject to food allergies like you wouldn't believe. We have bizarre medication reactions which baffle doctors and pharmacists.
Our likes and dislikes are very different from yours. We could care less who wins the Superbowl or Wimbledon or the Stanley Cup. We like old coins and freight trains, and can drive you out of your mind by reciting an encyclopedic knowlege of the development of diesel locomotives.
If we were offered a "CURE", and become like the neurotypical (normal, whatever that may be) people, whom many of us consider to be dull and boring, we would refuse. We wish that well-meaning people would quit trying to "cure" us, especially those delusional people who think that behavior modification is going to do the trick.
And MANY THANKS for asking this. I am even thinking of mailing this to the editor of a local newspaper.
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I'd like NTs to know I am NOT a mind reader. If they do not directly ask me to help or they tell me they don't need help when they do, how do I know that they need assistance? If others are already pitching in to help, I will believe that they've got the situation covered and I'd only be in the way.
Ditto with other social situations. Unwritten social rules mostly pass me by.
Also, I am not a groveller or crawler so don't expect praise if you don't deserve it. On the other hand, when I do compliment you, it is for real. I don't do it "just to be nice" or because I want somethin.
Well, I found calculus really difficult; harder even than relationships. We aren't all super mathematicians. The important thing to realise is we all have our unique profile of gifts and weaker areas. I agree with Batman that we should work to our strengths whenever we can.
I was one of those students who did well in every subject but maths in high school and know a number of aspies in real life who were academically poor due to learning disabilities. They are still obviously intelligent but the way academic subjects were taught failed to reach them and they were seen as lacking intelligence.
Well, you'd borrow the words of Popeye and say "I yam what I yam".
What if I was not a computer Aspie and my dad said, your brother is a computer whiz, you're an Aspie, be a computer whiz?
Believe it or not, GuessWho--that's what I wanted for myself from a young age. My brother was learning how to fix computers and eventually got into programming languages, fairly successful at it. I was trying to learn from him, but nothing--hardly a single thing--"sunk in." It was just not working as I wanted it to.
Still, I was interested in programming, and started fooling around with the TI-82 Basic language for many hours at a time. But then I realized it was taking me about 10x the amount of time to learn as it would for the average person. And I could hardly do the math, and overall, things would take forever. Eventually I knew it was not for me, and no matter how hard I tried, the Math inadequacy and other issues (short-term memory deficit especially) would keep me from doing it.
I've always been artistic/creatively-inclined and never had much interest in Math, as it is. So, just like you have different NTs with different interests/talents, you have different AS people with different interests/talents.
Amen to that, Batman! While I am interested in computers, my real areas of talent are in the arts and humanities. I'd like to see more attention given to portraying aspies are having different areas of talent, not just maths and computers and those with average abilities across the board.
The idea that you need to be a great mathmatician or into physics, etc. is rubbish. It just puts pressure and anxiety onto people to 'be like an atypical aspie'. I have AS because I have a difference related to social situations, instinct to associate with others, etc. I have obsessions and they could have been for maths, as it was it was for cars.
I'll take it a step further - I suggest that 10% of mathematically brilliant Aspies are also the most likely to get diagnosed, because they fit the stereotype. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy.
If you go by the actual DSM, I've got Aspergers in spades. But if you go by stereotype - male, maths whizz, computer geek, into Thomas the Tank Engine as a kid and online gaming as an adult - I don't fit at all. I reckon that's why I managed to wander around the mental health system for a decade before finally getting DXed... by an Aspie psychologist who agrees the maths whizz stereotype is bunk.
Me too. When the psychiatrist saw me, he just ticked one thing after another in the DSM IV criteria for Aspergers. I think only one or two of the criteria didn't really apply.
Chris, I'm sure I'm on solid ground when I say that the majority of aspies are NOT maths and computer geeks as you seem to say. Can you say the same about your opinion?
No indeed we don't. So that is why we should recognise the diversity of aspies and NOT stereotype them as just the one type of person with the one kind of skill set.
And by comparison how many NTs percentagewise have the math and computer talents?
And how many of us really care now?
But just about everybody uses "labels" = it's how we make sense of the world.
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